GLC: the theory and practice of resistance

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SOCIALIT Organiser's open letter to Chris Knight and Valerie Wise (SO, 4 march), criticising their editorial in the March issue of London Labour Briefing, and Chris Knight's reply the following week, open up some important issues about the role of socialists in local government.

In the same issue of Briefing, Ken Livingstone had an article entitled Stay and Fight. He wrote: to use our positions to expand and defend services and protect jobs we would never be forgiven or understood if we ran away from the tasks before us."

The record of the Labour GLC is better than most councils, but the working class in London can do without the sort of 'defence' and 'protection' that the transport service has had from the majority of Labour councillors.

It is not just transport WANT 177: either - the Labour Group has abandoned major manifesto pledges in every case where there has been legal threat. Livingstone himself voted to continue the Tory policy of transferring GLC housing to the boroughs and for the new ILEA budget with its $7 million cuts.

They have run away from the tasks before them.

In their Briefing editorial Chris Knight and Valerie Wise wrote:

"We are not yielding ground to the Tories any more than we are being literally forced to ...

"By staying in office we can increase, rather than decrease the scope for building that mass movement of resistance which we will need to take us along the road towards real power. Support from the GLC 'legitimises' our struggles in the eyes of Londoners...

Requirement

It is nonsense to talk of being forced to yield ground when the army was never mobilised in the first place.

A mass movement. of resistance is not the last resort, it is the first requirement, and it cannot be built on the basis of retreats when the leaders have not seriously organised for action from the start.

How has Livingstone 'legitimised' the Can't Pay, Won't Pay campaign, which will mean passengers and workers taking legal risks, when he himself ultimately voted to implement the fare increases?

Dependence

It is comrades like Chris Knight and Valerie Wise who are in effect 'legitimising' Livingstone's position in the eyes of Labour's rank and file.

This situation has arisen from the dependence of many Briefing comrades on council chamber tactics and their reliance on the GLC lefts.

Over the last few months this has been shown most clearly by Briefing's support for 'disengagement' or majority opposition. • In my view the disengagement tactic has been a. serious diversion - and discussion of it in the left press has been quite inadequate. Disengagement has focussed attention on what councillors can do inside the council, instead of preparing labour movement action and demanding that Labour counciliors give a lead to such action.

Like Chris Knight I am a member of East Lewisham Labour Party, where there has been a lot of support for disengagement. A motion on these lines was passed at the Borough Local Government Conference in December.

Support for this tactic has been based on lack of confidence in the likelihood of union action. Some comrades saw this as the real lesson of the Lothian defeat.

It was generally agreed, in an abstact way, that union support would be needed for eventual success but a lot of comrades thought it was unrealistic to put this to the fore.

'practical' Disengagement was seen as more "practical'.

In practice this attitude (which identifies the unions with the bureaucracy has made it easier for the Labour controlled council to ignore the local parties' demands for a no cuts, no rate rise, no rent rise policy.

The major lesson of this episode is the need for the Labour left to seriously strengthen links between local parties and union branches, build workplace branches of the Labour Party and campaign for trade union democracy. There are no short cuts through calls for "Taking to the Streets' (the title of Knight and Wise's editorial).

A further issue is, when is it appropriate for left wingers to resign from leading council positions?

Two ILEA members who voted against the revised budget have resigned as committee vice-chairs.

I think they were quite right, but the real question should be whether resignation is a way of taking a fight forward. This when Livingstone says that he will 'Stay and Fight' socialists should insist that he really does give leadership in a fight - even if this means being removed from or having to resign the leadership of the GLC.

Unhappy

I am sure the Briefing comrades want to fight and are unhappy about the present position.

It is certain that many more left wing councillors will be elected in the May elections, and that they will face even greater pressures. It is therefore vital that there is the widest and most thorough discussion possible of these issues.

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April 1982 Page

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BUILDING UNCEP TENANTS CONTROL